Horizon Minerals has launched a new drill campaign in a bid to expand the footprint of its Cannon gold project near Kalgoorlie from a single planned underground operation to a mining hub with potential open-pit mines.
The Cannon deposit hosts a mineable ore reserve of 135,000 tonnes at 4.1 grams per tonne gold for 17,680 ounces and forms part of the company’s 1.24-million-ounce Kalgoorlie-Boulder gold resource, which is split among 13 deposits.
The company’s new 8400m program will include about 2300m of infill resource drilling at its Monument and Pinner prospects, designed to test a target north of the Cannon mine with a single reverse-circulation (RC) drillhole, in addition to following up recent diamond drilling at Penny’s Find with two deep RC holes for about 730m.
Resources at Penny’s Find stand at 270,000 tonnes grading 4.99g/t gold for 43,000 ounces, which Horizon plans to exploit using a decline from the base of the old open-pit mine.
New discovery air-core (AC) and RC drilling will also kick off at Kanowna South and Lakewood to chase up results from last year’s drill campaign, while about 2600m of AC and RC exploration drilling is planned at the Kestrel and Honeyeater prospects within the company’s Binduli project.
Management says its focus for the latest campaign is to build its pipeline of production-ready deposits while also testing new discovery targets to progress its project.
Horizon Minerals chief executive officer Grant Haywood said: “With the development and mining of our Cannon underground gold project commencing in the December 2023 half, there is a great opportunity to leverage off the infrastructure being installed at Cannon to mine other assets in close proximity, such as Pinner and Monument. Our goal is to be in sustainable, profitable production moving from one small project to the next.”
Prior to Horizon acquiring Cannon in 2021, the deposit had been mined as an open pit up until 2017, producing 55,143 ounces of gold at a grade of 2.98g/t. The company has a significant 1100-square-kilometre tenement position centred around the WA Goldfields hub of Kalgoorlie.
The Cannon mine is fully-permitted, while final mining contract and joint venture negotiations are in progress. Horizon has agreed to a toll-milling allocation at the one-million-tonne per annum Greenfields Mill, 3km east of Coolgardie.
A prefeasibility study into the development of an underground operation at Cannon, tabled in March last year, demonstrated positive economic results under a contract mining and toll-milling model. The study found the operation could generate a net free cash flow of $10.1 million in a 16-month mine life at an Australian gold price of $2600 per ounce, while requiring a capital investment of just $4.3 million.
Gold is trading in Australia today at about $2880.
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